The road of the pass was hard and smooth and not yet dusty in the early morning. Below were the hills with oak and chestnut trees, and far away below was the sea. On the other side were snowy mountains.

We came down from the pass through wooded country.There were bags of charcoal piled beside the road, and through the trees we saw charcoal-burners’ huts.It was Sunday and the road, rising and falling, but always dropping away from the altitude of the pass, went through the scrub woods and through villages.

Outside the villages there were fields with vines.The fields were brown and the vines coarse and thick.The houses were white, and in the streets the men, in their Sunday clothes, were playing bowls.Against the walls of some of the houses there were pear trees, their branches candelabraed against the white walls.The pear trees had been sprayed, and the walls of the houses were stained a metallic blue-green by the spray vapor.There were small clearings around the villages where the vines grew, and then the woods.

In a village, twenty kilometres above Spezia, there was a crowd in the square, and a young man carrying a suitcase came up to the car and asked us to take him in to Spezia.

“There are only two places, and they are occupied,” I said.We had an old Ford coupé.

“I will ride on the outside.”

“You will be uncomfortable.”

“That makes nothing.I must go to Spezia.”

“Should we take him?”I asked Guy.

“He seems to be going anyway,” Guy said.The young man handed in a parcel through the window.

“Look after this,” he said.Two men tied his suitcase on the back of the car, above our suitcases.He shook hands with every one, explained that to a Fascist and a man as used to travelling as himself there was no discomfort, and climbed up on the running-board on the left-hand side of the car, holding on inside, his right arm through the open window.

“You can start,” he said.The crowd waved.He waved with his free hand.

“What did he say?”Guy asked me.

“That we could start.”

“Isn’t he nice?”Guy said.

The road followed a river.Across the river were mountains.The sun was taking the frost out of the grass.It was bright and cold and the air came cold through the open wind-shield.

“How do you think he likes it out there?”Guy was looking up the road.His view out of his side of the car was blocked by our guest.The young man projected from the side of the car like the figurehead of a ship.He had turned his coat collar up and pulled his hat down and his nose looked cold in the wind.

“Maybe he’ll get enough of it,” Guy said.“That’s the side our bum tire’s on.”

“Oh, he’d leave us if we blew out,” I said.“He wouldn’t get his travelling-clothes dirty.”

“Well, I don’t mind him,” Guy said—“except the way he leans out on the turns.”

The woods were gone; the road had left the river to climb; the radiator was boiling; the young man looked annoyedly and suspiciously at the steam and rusty water; the engine was grinding, with both Guy’s feet on the first-speed pedal, up and up, back and forth and up, and, finally, out level.The grinding stopped, and in the new quiet there was a great churning bubbling in the radiator.We were at the top of the last range above Spezia and the sea.The road descended with short, barely rounded turns.Our guest hung out on the turns and nearly pulled the top-heavy car over.

“You can’t tell him not to,” I said to Guy.“It’s his sense of self-preservation.”

“The great Italian sense.”

“The greatest Italian sense.”

We came down around curves, through deep dust, the dust powdering the olive trees.Spezia spread below along the sea.The road flattened outside the town.Our guest put his head in the window.

“I want to stop.”

“Stop it,” I said to Guy.

We slowed up, at the side of the road.The young man got down, went to the back of the car and untied the suitcase.

“I stop here, so you won’t get into trouble carrying passengers,” he said.“My package.”

I handed him the package.He reached in his pocket.

“How much do I owe you?”

“Nothing.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Then thanks,” the young man said, not “thank you,” or “thank you very much,” or “thank you a thousand times,” all of which you formerly said in Italy to a man when he handed you a time-table or explained about a direction.The young man uttered the lowest form of the word “thanks” and looked after us suspiciously as Guy started the car.I waved my hand at him.He was too dignified to reply.We went on into Spezia.

“That’s a young man that will go a long way in Italy,” I said to Guy.

“Well,” said Guy, “he went twenty kilometres with us.”

A MEAL IN SPEZIA

We came into Spezia looking for a place to eat.The street was wide and the houses high and yellow.We followed the tram-track into the centre of town.On the walls of the houses were stencilled eye-bugging portraits of Mussolini, with hand-painted “vivas,” the double V in black paint with drippings of paint down the wall.Side-streets went down to the harbor.It was bright and the people were all out for Sunday.The stone paving had been sprinkled and there were damp stretches in the dust.We went close to the curb to avoid a tram.

“Let’s eat somewhere simple,” Guy said.

We stopped opposite two restaurant signs.We were standing across the street and I was buying the papers.The two restaurants were side by side.A woman standing in the doorway of one smiled at us and we crossed the street and went in.

It was dark inside and at the back of the room three girls were sitting at a table with an old woman.Across from us, at another table, sat a sailor.He sat there neither eating nor drinking.Further back, a young man in a blue suit was writing at a table.His hair was pomaded and shining and he was very smartly dressed and clean-cut looking.

The light came through the doorway, and through the window where vegetables, fruit, steaks, and chops were arranged in a show-case.A girl came and took our order and another girl stood in the doorway.We noticed that she wore nothing under her house dress.The girl who took our order put her arm around Guy’s neck while we were looking at the menu.There were three girls in all, and they all took turns going and standing in the doorway.The old woman at the table in the back of the room spoke to them and they sat down again with her.

There was no doorway leading from the room except into the kitchen.A curtain hung over it.The girl who had taken our order came in from the kitchen with spaghetti.She put it on the table and brought a bottle of red wine and sat down at the table.

“Well,” I said to Guy, “you wanted to eat some place simple.”

“This isn’t simple.This is complicated.”

“What do you say?”asked the girl.“Are you Germans?”

“South Germans,” I said.“The South Germans are a gentle, lovable people.”

“Don’t understand,” she said.

“What’s the mechanics of this place?”Guy asked.“Do I have to let her put her arm around my neck?”

“Certainly,” I said.“Mussolini has abolished the brothels.This is a restaurant.”

The girl wore a one-piece dress.She leaned forward against the table and put her hands on her breasts and smiled.She smiled better on one side than on the other and turned the good side toward us.The charm of the good side had been enhanced by some event which had smoothed the other side of her nose in, as warm wax can be smoothed.Her nose, however, did not look like warm wax.It was very cold and firmed, only smoothed in.“You like me?”she asked Guy.

“He adores you,” I said.“But he doesn’t speak Italian.”

“Ich spreche Deutsch,” she said, and stroked Guy’s hair.

“Speak to the lady in your native tongue, Guy.”

“Where do you come from?”asked the lady.

“Potsdam.”

“And you will stay here now for a little while?”

“In this so dear Spezia?”I asked.

“Tell her we have to go,” said Guy.“Tell her we are very ill, and have no money.”

“My friend is a misogynist,” I said, “an old German misogynist.”

“Tell him I love him.”

I told him.

“Will you shut your mouth and get us out of here?”Guy said.The lady had placed another arm around his neck.“Tell him he is mine,” she said.I told him.

“Will you get us out of here?”

“You are quarrelling,” the lady said.“You do not love one another.”

“We are Germans,” I said proudly, “old South Germans.”

“Tell him he is a beautiful boy,” the lady said.Guy is thirty-eight and takes some pride in the fact that he is taken for a travelling salesman in France.“You are a beautiful boy,” I said.

“Who says so?”Guy asked, “you or her?”

“She does.I’m just your interpreter.Isn’t that what you got me in on this trip for?”

“I’m glad it’s her,” said Guy.“I didn’t want to have to leave you here too.”

“I don’t know.Spezia’s a lovely place.”

“Spezia,” the lady said.“You are talking about Spezia.”

“Lovely place,” I said.

“It is my country,” she said.“Spezia is my home and Italy is my country.”

“She says that Italy is her country.”

“Tell her it looks like her country,” Guy said.

“What have you for dessert?”I asked.

“Fruit,” she said.“We have bananas.”

“Bananas are all right,” Guy said.“They’ve got skins on.”

“Oh, he takes bananas,” the lady said.She embraced Guy.

“What does she say?”he asked, keeping his face out of the way.

“She is pleased because you take bananas.”

“Tell her I don’t take bananas.”

“The Signor does not take bananas.”

“Ah,” said the lady, crestfallen, “he doesn’t take bananas.”

“Tell her I take a cold bath every morning,” Guy said.

“The Signor takes a cold bath every morning.”

“No understand,” the lady said.

Across from us, the property sailor had not moved.No one in the place paid any attention to him.

“We want the bill,” I said.

“Oh, no.You must stay.”

“Listen,” the clean-cut young man said from the table where he was writing, “let them go.These two are worth nothing.”

The lady took my hand.“You won’t stay?You won’t ask him to stay?”

“We have to go,” I said.“We have to get to Pisa, or if possible, Firenze, to-night.We can amuse ourselves in those cities at the end of the day.It is now the day.In the day we must cover distance.”

“To stay a little while is nice.”

“To travel is necessary during the light of day.”

“Listen,” the clean-cut young man said.“Don’t bother to talk with these two.I tell you they are worth nothing and I know.”

“Bring us the bill,” I said.She brought the bill from the old woman and went back and sat at the table.Another girl came in from the kitchen.She walked the length of the room and stood in the doorway.

“Don’t bother with these two,” the clean-cut young man said in a wearied voice.“Come and eat.They are worth nothing.”

We paid the bill and stood up.All the girls, the old woman, and the clean-cut young man sat down at table together.The property sailor sat with his head in his hands.No one had spoken to him all the time we were at lunch.The girl brought us our change that the old woman counted out for her and went back to her place at the table.We left a tip on the table and went out.When we were seated in the car ready to start, the girl came out and stood in the door.We started and I waved to her.She did not wave, but stood there looking after us.

AFTER THE RAIN

It was raining hard when we passed through the suburbs of Genoa and, even going very slowly behind the tram-cars and the motor trucks, liquid mud splashed on to the sidewalks, so that people stepped into doorways as they saw us coming.In San Pier d’Arena, the industrial suburb outside of Genoa, there is a wide street with two car-tracks and we drove down the centre to avoid sending the mud on to the men going home from work.On our left was the Mediterranean.There was a big sea running and waves broke and the wind blew the spray against the car.A river-bed that, when we had passed, going into Italy, had been wide, stony and dry, was running brown, and up to the banks.The brown water discolored the sea and as the waves thinned and cleared in breaking, the light came through the yellow water and the crests, detached by the wind, blew across the road.

A big car passed us, going fast, and a sheet of muddy water rose up and over our wind-shield and radiator.The automatic wind-shield cleaner moved back and forth, spreading the film over the glass.We stopped and ate lunch at Sestri.There was no heat in the restaurant and we kept our hats and coats on.We could see the car outside, through the window.It was covered with mud and was stopped beside some boats that had been pulled up beyond the waves.In the restaurant you could see your breath.

The pasta asciuta was good; the wine tasted of alum, and we poured water in it. Afterward the waiter brought beefsteak and fried potatoes. A man and a woman sat at the far end of the restaurant. He was middle-aged and she was young and wore black. All during the meal she would blow out her breath in the cold damp air. The man would look at it and shake his head. They ate without talking and the man held her hand under the table. She was good-looking and they seemed very sad. They had a travelling-bag with them.

We had the papers and I read the account of the Shanghai fighting aloud to Guy.After the meal, he left with the waiter in search for a place which did not exist in the restaurant, and I cleaned off the wind-shield, the lights and the license plates with a rag.Guy came back and we backed the car out and started.The waiter had taken him across the road and into an old house.The people in the house were suspicious and the waiter had remained with Guy to see nothing was stolen.

“Although I don’t know how, me not being a plumber, they expected me to steal anything,” Guy said.

As we came up on a headland beyond the town, the wind struck the car and nearly tipped it over.

“It’s good it blows us away from the sea,” Guy said.

“Well,” I said, “they drowned Shelley somewhere along here.”

“That was down by Viareggio,” Guy said.“Do you remember what we came to this country for?”

“Yes,” I said, “but we didn’t get it.”

“We’ll be out of it to-night.”

“If we can get past Ventimiglia.”

“We’ll see.I don’t like to drive this coast at night.”It was early afternoon and the sun was out.Below, the sea was blue with whitecaps running toward Savona.Back, beyond the cape, the brown and blue waters joined.Out ahead of us, a tramp steamer was going up the coast.

“Can you still see Genoa?”Guy asked.

“Oh, yes.”

“That next big cape ought to put it out of sight.”

“We’ll see it a long time yet.I can still see Portofino Cape behind it.”

Finally we could not see Genoa.I looked back as we came out and there was only the sea, and below in the bay, a line of beach with fishing-boats and above, on the side of the hill, a town and then capes far down the coast.

“It’s gone now,” I said to Guy.

“Oh, it’s been gone a long time now.”

“But we couldn’t be sure till we got way out.”

There was a sign with a picture of an S-turn and Svolta Pericolosa.The road curved around the headland and the wind blew through the crack in the wind-shield.Below the cape was a flat stretch beside the sea.The wind had dried the mud and the wheels were beginning to lift dust.On the flat road we passed a Fascist riding a bicycle, a heavy revolver in a holster on his back.He held the middle of the road on his bicycle and we turned out for him.He looked up at us as we passed.Ahead there was a railway crossing, and as we came toward it the gates went down.

As we waited, the Fascist came up on his bicycle.The train went by and Guy started the engine.

“Wait,” the bicycle man shouted from behind the car.“Your number’s dirty.”

I got out with a rag.The number had been cleaned at lunch.

“You can read it,” I said.

“You think so?”

“Read it.”

“I cannot read it.It is dirty.”

I wiped it off with the rag.

“How’s that?”

“Twenty-five lire.”

“What?”I said.“You could have read it.It’s only dirty from the state of the roads.”

“You don’t like Italian roads?”

“They are dirty.”

“Fifty lire.”He spat in the road.“Your car is dirty and you are dirty too.”

“Good.And give me a receipt with your name.”

He took out a receipt-book, made in duplicate, and perforated, so one side could be given to the customer, and the other side filled in and kept as a stub.There was no carbon to record what the customer’s ticket said.

“Give me fifty lire.”

He wrote in indelible pencil, tore out the slip and handed it to me.I read it.

“This is for twenty-five lire.”

“A mistake,” he said, and changed the twenty-five to fifty.

“And now the other side.Make it fifty in the part you keep.”

He smiled a beautiful Italian smile and wrote something on the receipt stub, holding it so I could not see.

“Go on,” he said, “before your number gets dirty again.”

We drove for two hours after it was dark and slept in Mentone that night.It seemed very cheerful and clean and sane and lovely.We had driven from Ventimiglia to Pisa and Florence, across the Romagna to Rimini, back through Forli, Imola, Bologna, Parma, Piacenza and Genoa, to Ventimiglia again.The whole trip had only taken ten days.Naturally, in such a short trip, we had no opportunity to see how things were with the country or the people.

---

“How are you going yourself, Jack?” I asked him.

“You seen this, Walcott?”he says.

“Just in the gym.”

“Well,” Jack says, “I’m going to need a lot of luck with that boy.”

“He can’t hit you, Jack,” Soldier said.

“I wish to hell he couldn’t.”

“He couldn’t hit you with a handful of bird-shot.”

“Bird-shot’d be all right,” Jack says.“I wouldn’t mind bird-shot any.”

“He looks easy to hit,” I said.

“Sure,” Jack says, “he ain’t going to last long.He ain’t going to last like you and me, Jerry.But right now he’s got everything.”

“You’ll left-hand him to death.”

“Maybe,” Jack says.“Sure.I got a chance to.”

“Handle him like you handled Kid Lewis.”

“Kid Lewis,” Jack said.“That kike!”

The three of us, Jack Brennan, Soldier Bartlett, and I were in Handley’s.There were a couple of broads sitting at the next table to us.They had been drinking.

“What do you mean, kike?”one of the broads says.“What do you mean, kike, you big Irish bum?”

“Sure,” Jack says.“That’s it.”

“Kikes,” this broad goes on.“They’re always talking about kikes, these big Irishmen.What do you mean, kikes?”

“Come on.Let’s get out of here.”

“Kikes,” this broad goes on.“Whoever saw you ever buy a drink?Your wife sews your pockets up every morning.These Irishmen and their kikes!Ted Lewis could lick you too.”

“Sure,” Jack says.“And you give away a lot of things free too, don’t you?”

We went out.That was Jack.He could say what he wanted to when he wanted to say it.

Jack started training out at Danny Hogan’s health-farm over in Jersey.It was nice out there but Jack didn’t like it much.He didn’t like being away from his wife and the kids, and he was sore and grouchy most of the time.He liked me and we got along fine together; and he liked Hogan, but after a while Soldier Bartlett commenced to get on his nerves.A kidder gets to be an awful thing around a camp if his stuff goes sort of sour.Soldier was always kidding Jack, just sort of kidding him all the time.It wasn’t very funny and it wasn’t very good, and it began to get to Jack.It was sort of stuff like this.Jack would finish up with the weights and the bag and pull on the gloves.

“You want to work?”he’d say to Soldier.

“Sure.How you want me to work?”Soldier would ask.“Want me to treat you rough like Walcott?Want me to knock you down a few times?”

“That’s it,” Jack would say.He didn’t like it any, though.

One morning we were all out on the road.We’d been out quite a way and now we were coming back.We’d go along fast for three minutes and then walk a minute, and then go fast for three minutes again.Jack wasn’t ever what you would call a sprinter.He’d move around fast enough in the ring if he had to, but he wasn’t any too fast on the road.All the time we were walking Soldier was kidding him.We came up the hill to the farmhouse.

“Well,” says Jack, “you better go back to town, Soldier.”

“What do you mean?”

“You better go back to town and stay there.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m sick of hearing you talk.”

“Yes?”says Soldier.

“Yes,” says Jack.

“You’ll be a damn sight sicker when Walcott gets through with you.”

“Sure,” says Jack, “maybe I will.But I know I’m sick of you.”

So Soldier went off on the train to town that same morning.I went down with him to the train.He was good and sore.

“I was just kidding him,” he said.We were waiting on the platform.“He can’t pull that stuff with me, Jerry.”

“He’s nervous and crabby,” I said.“He’s a good fellow, Soldier.”

“The hell he is.The hell he’s ever been a good fellow.”

“Well,” I said, “so long, Soldier.”

The train had come in.He climbed up with his bag.

“So long, Jerry,” he says.“You be in town before the fight?”

“I don’t think so.”

“See you then.”

He went in and the conductor swung up and the train went out.I rode back to the farm in the cart.Jack was on the porch writing a letter to his wife.The mail had come and I got the papers and went over on the other side of the porch and sat down to read.Hogan came out the door and walked over to me.

“Did he have a jam with Soldier?”

“Not a jam,” I said.“He just told him to go back to town.”

“I could see it coming,” Hogan said.“He never liked Soldier much.”

“No.He don’t like many people.”

“He’s a pretty cold one,” Hogan said.

“Well, he’s always been fine to me.”

“Me too,” Hogan said.“I got no kick on him.He’s a cold one, though.”

Hogan went in through the screen door and I sat there on the porch and read the papers.It was just starting to get fall weather and it’s nice country there in Jersey, up in the hills, and after I read the paper through I sat there and looked out at the country and the road down below against the woods with cars going along it, lifting the dust up.It was fine weather and pretty nice-looking country.Hogan came to the door and I said, “Say, Hogan, haven’t you got anything to shoot out here?”

“No,” Hogan said.“Only sparrows.”

“Seen the paper?”I said to Hogan.

“What’s in it?”

“Sande booted three of them in yesterday.”

“I got that on the telephone last night.”

“You follow them pretty close, Hogan?”I asked.

“Oh, I keep in touch with them,” Hogan said.

“How about Jack?”I says.“Does he still play them?”

“Him?”said Hogan.“Can you see him doing it?”

Just then Jack came around the corner with the letter in his hand.He’s wearing a sweater and an old pair of pants and boxing shoes.

“Got a stamp, Hogan?”he asks.

“Give me the letter,” Hogan said.“I’ll mail it for you.”

“Say, Jack,” I said, “didn’t you used to play the ponies?”

“Sure.”

“I knew you did.I knew I used to see you out at Sheepshead.”

“What did you lay off them for?”Hogan asked.

“Lost money.”

Jack sat down on the porch by me.He leaned back against a post.He shut his eyes in the sun.

“Want a chair?”Hogan asked.

“No,” said Jack.“This is fine.”

“It’s a nice day,” I said.“It’s pretty nice out in the country.”

“I’d a damn sight rather be in town with the wife.”

“Well, you only got another week.”

“Yes,” Jack says.“That’s so.”

We sat there on the porch.Hogan was inside at the office.

“What do you think about the shape I’m in?”Jack asked me.

“Well, you can’t tell,” I said.“You got a week to get around into form.”

“Don’t stall me.”

“Well,” I said, “you’re not right.”

“I’m not sleeping,” Jack said.

“You’ll be all right in a couple of days.”

“No,” says Jack, “I got the insomnia.”

“What’s on your mind?”

“I miss the wife.”

“Have her come out.”

“No.I’m too old for that.”

“We’ll take a long walk before you turn in and get you good and tired.”

“Tired!”Jack says.“I’m tired all the time.”

He was that way all week.He wouldn’t sleep at night and he’d get up in the morning feeling that way, you know, when you can’t shut your hands.

“He’s stale as poorhouse cake,” Hogan said.“He’s nothing.”

“I never seen Walcott,” I said.

“He’ll kill him,” said Hogan.“He’ll tear him in two.”

“Well,” I said, “everybody’s got to get it sometime.”

“Not like this, though,” Hogan said.“They’ll think he never trained.It gives the farm a black eye.”

“You hear what the reporters said about him?”

“Didn’t I!They said he was awful.They said they oughtn’t to let him fight.”

“Well,” I said, “they’re always wrong, ain’t they?”

“Yes,” said Hogan.“But this time they’re right.”

“What the hell do they know about whether a man’s right or not?”

“Well,” said Hogan, “they’re not such fools.”

“All they did was pick Willard at Toledo.This Lardner, he’s so wise now, ask him about when he picked Willard at Toledo.”

“Aw, he wasn’t out,” Hogan said.“He only writes the big fights.”

“I don’t care who they are,” I said.“What the hell do they know?They can write maybe, but what the hell do they know?”

“You don’t think Jack’s in any shape, do you?”Hogan asked.

“No.He’s through.All he needs is to have Corbett pick him to win for it to be all over.”

“Well, Corbett’ll pick him,” Hogan says.

“Sure.He’ll pick him.”

That night Jack didn’t sleep any either.The next morning was the last day before the fight.After breakfast we were out on the porch again.

“What do you think about, Jack, when you can’t sleep?”I said.

“Oh, I worry,” Jack says.“I worry about property I got up in the Bronx, I worry about property I got in Florida.I worry about the kids.I worry about the wife.Sometimes I think about fights.I think about that kike Ted Lewis and I get sore.I got some stocks and I worry about them.What the hell don’t I think about?”

“Well,” I said, “to-morrow night it’ll all be over.”

“Sure,” said Jack.“That always helps a lot, don’t it?That just fixes everything all up, I suppose.Sure.”

He was sore all day.We didn’t do any work.Jack just moved around a little to loosen up.He shadow-boxed a few rounds.He didn’t even look good doing that.He skipped the rope a little while.He couldn’t sweat.

“He’d be better not to do any work at all,” Hogan said.We were standing watching him skip rope.“Don’t he ever sweat at all any more?”

“He can’t sweat.”

“Do you suppose he’s got the con?He never had any trouble making weight, did he?”

“No, he hasn’t got any con.He just hasn’t got anything inside any more.”

“He ought to sweat,” said Hogan.

Jack came over, skipping the rope.He was skipping up and down in front of us, forward and back, crossing his arms every third time.

“Well,” he says.“What are you buzzards talking about?”

“I don’t think you ought to work any more,” Hogan says.“You’ll be stale.”

“Wouldn’t that be awful?”Jack says and skips away down the floor, slapping the rope hard.

That afternoon John Collins showed up out at the farm.Jack was up in his room.John, came out in a car from town.He had a couple of friends with him.The car stopped and they all got out.

“Where’s Jack?”John asked me.

“Up in his room, lying down.”

“Lying down?”

“Yes,” I said.

“How is he?”

I looked at the two fellows that were with John.

“They’re friends of his,” John said.

“He’s pretty bad,” I said.

“What’s the matter with him?”

“He don’t sleep.”

“Hell,” said John.“That Irishman could never sleep.”

“He isn’t right,” I said.

“Hell,” John said.“He’s never right.I’ve had him for ten years and he’s never been right yet.”

The fellows who were with him laughed.

“I want you to shake hands with Mr. Morgan and Mr. Steinfelt,” John said.“This is Mr. Doyle.He’s been training Jack.”

“Glad to meet you,” I said.

“Let’s go up and see the boy,” the fellow called Morgan said.

“Let’s have a look at him,” Steinfelt said.

We all went upstairs.

“Where’s Hogan?”John asked.

“He’s out in the barn with a couple of his customers,” I said.

“He got many people out here now?”John asked.

“Just two.”

“Pretty quiet, ain’t it?”Morgan said.

“Yes,” I said.“It’s pretty quiet.”

We were outside Jack’s room.John knocked on the door.There wasn’t any answer.

“Maybe he’s asleep,” I said.

“What the hell’s he sleeping in the daytime for?”

John turned the handle and we all went in.Jack was lying asleep on the bed.He was face down and his face was in the pillow.Both his arms were around the pillow.

“Hey, Jack!”John said to him.

Jack’s head moved a little on the pillow.“Jack!”John says, leaning over him.Jack just dug a little deeper in the pillow.John touched him on the shoulder.Jack sat up and looked at us.He hadn’t shaved and he was wearing an old sweater.

“Christ!Why can’t you let me sleep?”he says to John.

“Don’t be sore,” John says.“I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“Oh no,” Jack says.“Of course not.”

“You know Morgan and Steinfelt,” John said.

“Glad to see you,” Jack says.

“How do you feel, Jack,” Morgan asks him.

“Fine,” Jack says.“How the hell would I feel?”

“You look fine,” Steinfelt says.

“Yes, don’t I,” says Jack.“Say,” he says to John.“You’re my manager.You get a big enough cut.Why the hell don’t you come out here when the reporters was out!You want Jerry and me to talk to them?”

“I had Lew fighting in Philadelphia,” John said.

“What the hell’s that to me?”Jack says.“You’re my manager.You get a big enough cut, don’t you?You aren’t making me any money in Philadelphia, are you?Why the hell aren’t you out here when I ought to have you?”

“Hogan was here.”

“Hogan,” Jack says.“Hogan’s as dumb as I am.”

“Soldier Bathlett was out here wukking with you for a while, wasn’t he?”Steinfelt said to change the subject.

“Yes, he was out here,” Jack says.“He was out here all right.”

“Say, Jerry,” John said to me.“Would you go and find Hogan and tell him we want to see him in about half an hour?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Why the hell can’t he stick around?”Jack says.“Stick around, Jerry.”

Morgan and Steinfelt looked at each other.

“Quiet down, Jack,” John said to him.

“I better go find Hogan,” I said.

“All right, if you want to go,” Jack says.“None of these guys are going to send you away, though.”

“I’ll go find Hogan,” I said.

Hogan was out in the gym in the barn.He had a couple of his health-farm patients with the gloves on.They neither one wanted to hit the other, for fear the other would come back and hit him.

“That’ll do,” Hogan said when he saw me come in.“You can stop the slaughter.You gentlemen take a shower and Bruce will rub you down.”

They climbed out through the ropes and Hogan came over to me.

“John Collins is out with a couple of friends to see Jack,” I said.

“I saw them come up in the car.”

“Who are the two fellows with John?”

“They’re what you call wise boys,” Hogan said.“Don’t you know them two?”

“No,” I said.

“That’s Happy Steinfelt and Lew Morgan.They got a pool-room.”

“I been away a long time,” I said.

“Sure,” said Hogan.“That Happy Steinfelt’s a big operator.”

“I’ve heard his name,” I said.

“He’s a pretty smooth boy,” Hogan said.“They’re a couple of sharpshooters.”

“Well,” I said.“They want to see us in half an hour.”

“You mean they don’t want to see us until a half an hour?”

“That’s it.”

“Come on in the office,” Hogan said.“To hell with those sharpshooters.”

After about thirty minutes or so Hogan and I went upstairs.We knocked on Jack’s door.They were talking inside the room.

“Wait a minute,” somebody said.

“To hell with that stuff,” Hogan said.“When you want to see me I’m down in the office.”

We heard the door unlock.Steinfelt opened it.

“Come on in, Hogan,” he says.“We’re all going to have a drink.”

“Well,” says Hogan.“That’s something.”

We went in.Jack was sitting on the bed.John and Morgan were sitting on a couple of chairs.Steinfelt was standing up.

“You’re a pretty mysterious lot of boys,” Hogan said.

“Hello, Danny,” John says.

“Hello, Danny,” Morgan says and shakes hands.

Jack doesn’t say anything.He just sits there on the bed.He ain’t with the others.He’s all by himself.He was wearing an old blue jersey and pants and had on boxing shoes.He needed a shave.Steinfelt and Morgan were dressers.John was quite a dresser too.Jack sat there looking Irish and tough.

Steinfelt brought out a bottle and Hogan brought in some glasses and everybody had a drink.Jack and I took one and the rest of them went on and had two or three each.

“Better save some for your ride back,” Hogan said.

“Don’t you worry.We got plenty,” Morgan said.

Jack hadn’t drunk anything since the one drink.He was standing up and looking at them.Morgan was sitting on the bed where Jack had sat.

“Have a drink, Jack,” John said and handed him the glass and the bottle.

“No,” Jack said, “I never liked to go to these wakes.”

They all laughed.Jack didn’t laugh.

They were all feeling pretty good when they left.Jack stood on the porch when they got into the car.They waved to him.

“So long,” Jack said.

We had supper.Jack didn’t say anything all during the meal except, “Will you pass me this?”or “Will you pass me that?”The two health-farm patients ate at the same table with us.They were pretty nice fellows.After we finished eating we went out on the porch.It was dark early.

“Like to take a walk, Jerry?”Jack asked.

“Sure,” I said.

We put on our coats and started out.It was quite a way down to the main road and then we walked along the main road about a mile and a half.Cars kept going by and we would pull out to the side until they were past.Jack didn’t say anything.After we had stepped out into the bushes to let a big car go by Jack said, “To hell with this walking.Come on back to Hogan’s.”

We went along a side road that cut up over the hill and cut across the fields back to Hogan’s.We could see the lights of the house up on the hill.We came around to the front of the house and there standing in the doorway was Hogan.

“Have a good walk?”Hogan asked.

“Oh, fine,” Jack said.“Listen, Hogan.Have you got any liquor?”

“Sure,” says Hogan.“What’s the idea?”

“Send it up to the room,” Jack says.“I’m going to sleep to-night.”

“You’re the doctor,” Hogan says.

“Come on up to the room, Jerry,” Jack says.

Upstairs Jack sat on the bed with his head in his hands.

“Ain’t it a life?”Jack says.

Hogan brought in a quart of liquor and two glasses.

“Want some ginger-ale?”

“What do you think I want to do, get sick?”

“I just asked you,” said Hogan.

“Have a drink?”said Jack.

“No, thanks,” said Hogan.He went out.

“How about you, Jerry?”

“I’ll have one with you,” I said.

Jack poured out a couple of drinks.“Now,” he said, “I want to take it slow and easy.”

“Put some water in it,” I said.

“Yes,” Jack said.“I guess that’s better.”

We had a couple of drinks without saying anything.Jack started to pour me another.

“No,” I said, “that’s all I want.”

“All right,” Jack said.He poured himself out another big shot and put water in it.He was lighting up a little.

“That was a fine bunch out here this afternoon,” he said.“They don’t take any chances, those two.”

Then a little later, “Well,” he says, “they’re right.What the hell’s the good in taking chances?”

“Don’t you want another, Jerry?”he said.“Come on, drink along with me.”

“I don’t need it, Jack,” I said.“I feel all right.”

“Just have one more,” Jack said.It was softening him up.

“All right,” I said.

Jack poured one for me and another big one for himself.

“You know,” he said, “I like liquor pretty well.If I hadn’t been boxing I would have drunk quite a lot.”

“Sure,” I said.

“You know,” he said, “I missed a lot, boxing.”

“You made plenty of money.”

“Sure, that’s what I’m after.You know I miss a lot, Jerry.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well,” he says, “like about the wife.And being away from home so much.It don’t do my girls any good.‘Whose your old man?’some of those society kids’ll say to them.‘My old man’s Jack Brennan.’That don’t do them any good.”

“Hell,” I said, “all that makes a difference is if they got dough.”

“Well,” says Jack, “I got the dough for them all right.”

He poured out another drink.The bottle was about empty.

“Put some water in it,” I said.Jack poured in some water.

“You know,” he says, “you ain’t got any idea how I miss the wife.”

“Sure.”

“You ain’t got any idea.You can’t have an idea what it’s like.”

“It ought to be better out in the country than in town.”

“With me now,” Jack said, “it don’t make any difference where I am.You can’t have an idea what it’s like.”

“Have another drink.”

“Am I getting soused?Do I talk funny?”

“You’re coming on all right.”

“You can’t have an idea what it’s like.They ain’t anybody can have an idea what it’s like.”

“Except the wife,” I said.

“She knows,” Jack said.“She knows all right.She knows.You bet she knows.”

“Put some water in that,” I said.

“Jerry,” says Jack, “you can’t have an idea what it gets to be like.”

He was good and drunk.He was looking at me steady.His eyes were sort of too steady.

“You’ll sleep all right,” I said.

“Listen, Jerry,” Jack says.“You want to make some money?Get some money down on Walcott.”

“Yes?”

“Listen, Jerry,” Jack put down the glass.“I’m not drunk now, see?You know what I’m betting on him?Fifty grand.”

“That’s a lot of dough.”

“Fifty grand,” Jack says, “at two to one.I’ll get twenty-five thousand bucks.Get some money on him, Jerry.”

“It sounds good,” I said.

“How can I beat him?”Jack says.“It ain’t crooked.How can I beat him?Why not make money on it?”

“Put some water in that,” I said.

“I’m through after this fight,” Jack says.“I’m through with it.I got to take a beating.Why shouldn’t I make money on it?”

“Sure.”

“I ain’t slept for a week,” Jack says.“All night I lay awake and worry my can off.I can’t sleep, Jerry.You ain’t got an idea what it’s like when you can’t sleep.”

“Sure.”

“I can’t sleep.That’s all.I just can’t sleep.What’s the use of taking care of yourself all these years when you can’t sleep?”

“It’s bad.”

“You ain’t got an idea what it’s like, Jerry, when you can’t sleep.”

“Put some water in that,” I said.

Well, about eleven o’clock Jack passes out and I put him to bed.Finally he’s so he can’t keep from sleeping.I helped him get his clothes off and got him into bed.

“You’ll sleep all right, Jack,” I said.

“Sure,” Jack says, “I’ll sleep now.”

“Good-night, Jack,” I said.

“Good-night, Jerry,” Jack says.“You’re the only friend I got.”

“Oh, hell,” I said.

“You’re the only friend I got,” Jack says, “the only friend I got.”

“Go to sleep,” I said.

“I’ll sleep,” Jack says.

Downstairs Hogan was sitting at the desk in the office reading the papers.He looked up.“Well, you get your boy friend to sleep?”he asks.

“He’s off.”

“It’s better for him than not sleeping,” Hogan said.

“Sure.”

“You’d have a hell of a time explaining that to these sport writers though,” Hogan said.

“Well, I’m going to bed myself,” I said.

“Good-night,” said Hogan.

In the morning I came downstairs about eight o’clock and got some breakfast.Hogan had his two customers out in the barn doing exercises.I went out and watched them.

“One!Two!Three!Four!”Hogan was counting for them.“Hello, Jerry,” he said.“Is Jack up yet?”

“No.He’s still sleeping.”

I went back to my room and packed up to go in to town.About nine-thirty I heard Jack getting up in the next room.When I heard him go downstairs I went down after him.Jack was sitting at the breakfast table.Hogan had come in and was standing beside the table.

“How do you feel, Jack?”I asked him.

“Not so bad.”

“Sleep well?”Hogan asked.

“I slept all right,” Jack said.“I got a thick tongue but I ain’t got a head.”

“Good,” said Hogan.“That was good liquor.”

“Put it on the bill,” Jack says.

“What time you want to go into town?”Hogan asked.

“Before lunch,” Jack says.“The eleven o’clock train.”

“Sit down, Jerry,” Jack said.Hogan went out.

I sat down at the table.Jack was eating a grape-fruit.When he’d find a seed he’d spit it out in the spoon and dump it on the plate.

“I guess I was pretty stewed last night,” he started.

“You drank some liquor.”

“I guess I said a lot of fool things.”

“You weren’t bad.”

“Where’s Hogan?”he asked.He was through with the grape-fruit.

“He’s out in front in the office.”

“What did I say about betting on the fight?”Jack asked.He was holding the spoon and sort of poking at the grape-fruit with it.

The girl came in with some ham and eggs and took away the grape-fruit.

“Bring me another glass of milk,” Jack said to her.She went out.

“You said you had fifty grand on Walcott,” I said.

“That’s right,” Jack said.

“That’s a lot of money.”

“I don’t feel too good about it,” Jack said.

“Something might happen.”

“No,” Jack said.“He wants the title bad.They’ll be shooting with him all right.”

“You can’t ever tell.”

“No.He wants the title.It’s worth a lot of money to him.”

“Fifty grand is a lot of money,” I said.

“It’s business,” said Jack.“I can’t win.You know I can’t win anyway.”

“As long as you’re in there you got a chance.”

“No,” Jack says.“I’m all through.It’s just business.”

“How do you feel?”

“Pretty good,” Jack said.“The sleep was what I needed.”

“You might go good.”

“I’ll give them a good show,” Jack said.

After breakfast Jack called up his wife on the long-distance.He was inside the booth telephoning.

“That’s the first time he’s called her up since he’s out here,” Hogan said.

“He writes her every day.”

“Sure,” Hogan says, “a letter only costs two cents.”

Hogan said good-by to us and Bruce, the nigger rubber, drove us down to the train in the cart.

“Good-by, Mr. Brennan,” Bruce said at the train, “I sure hope you knock his can off.”

“So long,” Jack said.He gave Bruce two dollars.Bruce had worked on him a lot.He looked kind of disappointed.Jack saw me looking at Bruce holding the two dollars.

“It’s all in the bill,” he said.“Hogan charged me for the rubbing.”

On the train going into town Jack didn’t talk.He sat in the corner of the seat with his ticket in his hat-band and looked out of the window.Once he turned and spoke to me.

“I told the wife I’d take a room at the Shelby to-night,” he said.“It’s just around the corner from the Garden.I can go up to the house to-morrow morning.”

“That’s a good idea,” I said.“Your wife ever see you fight, Jack?”

“No,” Jack says.“She never seen me fight.”

I thought he must be figuring on taking an awful beating if he doesn’t want to go home afterward.In town we took a taxi up to the Shelby.A boy came out and took our bags and we went in to the desk.

“How much are the rooms?”Jack asked.

“We only have double rooms,” the clerk says.“I can give you a nice double room for ten dollars.”

“That’s too steep.”

“I can give you a double room for seven dollars.”

“With a bath?”

“Certainly.”

“You might as well bunk with me, Jerry,” Jack says.

“Oh,” I said, “I’ll sleep down at my brother-in-law’s.”

“I don’t mean for you to pay it,” Jack says.“I just want to get my money’s worth.”

“Will you register, please?”the clerk says.He looked at the names.“Number 238, Mister Brennan.”

We went up in the elevator.It was a nice big room with two beds and a door opening into a bath-room.

“This is pretty good,” Jack says.

The boy who brought us up pulled up the curtains and brought in our bags.Jack didn’t make any move, so I gave the boy a quarter.We washed up and Jack said we better go out and get something to eat.

We ate a lunch at Jimmey Handley’s place.Quite a lot of the boys were there.When we were about half through eating, John came in and sat down with us.Jack didn’t talk much.

“How are you on the weight, Jack?”John asked him.Jack was putting away a pretty good lunch.

“I could make it with my clothes on,” Jack said.He never had to worry about taking off weight.He was a natural welter-weight and he’d never gotten fat.He’d lost weight out at Hogan’s.

“Well, that’s one thing you never had to worry about,” John said.

“That’s one thing,” Jack says.

We went around to the garden to weigh in after lunch.The match was made at a hundred forty-seven pounds at three o’clock.Jack stepped on the scales with a towel around him.The bar didn’t move.Walcott had just weighed and was standing with a lot of people around him.

“Let’s see what you weigh, Jack,” Freedman, Walcott’s manager said.

“All right, weigh him then,” Jack jerked his head toward Walcott.

“Drop the towel,” Freedman said.

“What do you make it?”Jack asked the fellows who were weighing.

“One hundred and forty-three pounds,” the fat man who was weighing said.

“You’re down fine, Jack,” Freedman says.

“Weigh him,” Jack says.

Walcott came over.He was a blond with wide shoulders and arms like a heavyweight.He didn’t have much legs.Jack stood about half a head taller than he did.

“Hello, Jack,” he said.His face was plenty marked up.

“Hello,” said Jack.“How you feel?”

“Good,” Walcott says.He dropped the towel from around his waist and stood on the scales.He had the widest shoulders and back you ever saw.

“One hundred and forty-six pounds and twelve ounces.”

Walcott stepped off and grinned at Jack.

“Well,” John says to him, “Jack’s spotting you about four pounds.”

“More than that when I come in, kid,” Walcott says.“I’m going to go and eat now.”

We went back and Jack got dressed.“He’s a pretty tough-looking boy,” Jack says to me.

“He looks as though he’d been hit plenty of times.”

“Oh, yes,” Jack says.“He ain’t hard to hit.”

“Where are you going?”John asked when Jack was dressed.

“Back to the hotel,” Jack says.“You looked after everything?”

“Yes,” John says.“It’s all looked after.”

“I’m going to lie down a while,” Jack says.

“I’ll come around for you about a quarter to seven and we’ll go and eat.”

“All right.”

Up at the hotel Jack took off his shoes and his coat and lay down for a while.I wrote a letter.I looked over a couple of times and Jack wasn’t sleeping.He was lying perfectly still but every once in a while his eyes would open.Finally he sits up.

“Want to play some cribbage, Jerry?”he says.

“Sure,” I said.

He went over to his suitcase and got out the cards and the cribbage board.We played cribbage and he won three dollars off me.John knocked at the door and came in.

“Want to play some cribbage, John?”Jack asked him.

John put his kelly down on the table.It was all wet.His coat was wet too.

“Is it raining?”Jack asks.

“It’s pouring,” John says.“The taxi I had, got tied up in the traffic and I got out and walked.”

“Come on, play some cribbage,” Jack says.

“You ought to go and eat.”

“No,” says Jack.“I don’t want to eat yet.”

So they played cribbage for about half an hour and Jack won a dollar and a half off him.

“Well, I suppose we got to go eat,” Jack says.He went to the window and looked out.

“Is it still raining?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s eat in the hotel,” John says.

“All right,” Jack says, “I’ll play you once more to see who pays for the meal.”

After a little while Jack gets up and says, “You buy the meal, John,” and we went downstairs and ate in the big dining-room.

After we ate we went upstairs and Jack played cribbage with John again and won two dollars and a half off him.Jack was feeling pretty good.John had a bag with him with all his stuff in it.Jack took off his shirt and collar and put on a jersey and a sweater, so he wouldn’t catch cold when he came out, and put his ring clothes and his bathrobe in a bag.

“You all ready?”John asks him.“I’ll call up and have them get a taxi.”

Pretty soon the telephone rang and they said the taxi was waiting.

We rode down in the elevator and went out through the lobby, and got in a taxi and rode around to the Garden.It was raining hard but there was a lot of people outside on the streets.The Garden was sold out.As we came in on our way to the dressing-room I saw how full it was.It looked like half a mile down to the ring.It was all dark.Just the lights over the ring.

“It’s a good thing, with this rain, they didn’t try and pull this fight in the ball park,” John said.

“They got a good crowd,” Jack says.

“This is a fight that would draw a lot more than the Garden could hold.”

“You can’t tell about the weather,” Jack says.

John came to the door of the dressing-room and poked his head in.Jack was sitting there with his bathrobe on, he had his arms folded and was looking at the floor.John had a couple of handlers with him.They looked over his shoulder.Jack looked up.

“Is he in?”he asked.

“He’s just gone down,” John said.

We started down.Walcott was just getting into the ring.The crowd gave him a big hand.He climbed through between the ropes and put his two fists together and smiled, and shook them at the crowd, first at one side of the ring, then at the other, and then sat down.Jack got a good hand coming down through the crowd.Jack is Irish and the Irish always get a pretty good hand.An Irishman don’t draw in New York like a Jew or an Italian but they always get a good hand.Jack climbed up and bent down to go through the ropes and Walcott came over from his corner and pushed the rope down for Jack to go through.The crowd thought that was wonderful.Walcott put his hand on Jack’s shoulder and they stood there just for a second.

“So you’re going to be one of these popular champions,” Jack says to him.“Take your goddam hand off my shoulder.”

“Be yourself,” Walcott says.

This is all great for the crowd.How gentlemanly the boys are before the fight!How they wish each other luck!

Solly Freedman came over to our corner while Jack is bandaging his hands and John is over in Walcott’s corner.Jack puts his thumb through the slit in the bandage and then wrapped his hand nice and smooth.I taped it around the wrist and twice across the knuckles.

“Hey,” Freedman says.“Where do you get all that tape?”

“Feel of it,” Jack says.“It’s soft, ain’t it?Don’t be a hick.”

Freedman stands there all the time while Jack bandages the other hand, and one of the boys that’s going to handle him brings the gloves and I pull them on and work them around.

“Say, Freedman,” Jack asks, “what nationality is this Walcott?”

“I don’t know,” Solly says.“He’s some sort of a Dane.”

“He’s a Bohemian,” the lad who brought the gloves said.

The referee called them out to the centre of the ring and Jack walks out.Walcott comes out smiling.They met and the referee put his arm on each of their shoulders.

“Hello, popularity,” Jack says to Walcott.

“Be yourself.”

“What do you call yourself ‘Walcott’ for?”Jack says.“Didn’t you know he was a nigger?”

“Listen—” says the referee, and he gives them the same old line.Once Walcott interrupts him.He grabs Jack’s arm and says, “Can I hit when he’s got me like this?”

“Keep your hands off me,” Jack says.“There ain’t no moving-pictures of this.”

They went back to their corners.I lifted the bathrobe off Jack and he leaned on the ropes and flexed his knees a couple of times and scuffed his shoes in the rosin.The gong rang and Jack turned quick and went out.Walcott came toward him and they touched gloves and as soon as Walcott dropped his hands Jack jumped his left into his face twice.There wasn’t anybody ever boxed better than Jack.Walcott was after him, going forward all the time with his chin on his chest.He’s a hooker and he carries his hands pretty low.All he knows is to get in there and sock.But every time he gets in there close, Jack has the left hand in his face.It’s just as though it’s automatic.Jack just raises the left hand up and it’s in Walcott’s face.Three or four times Jack brings the right over but Walcott gets it on the shoulder or high up on the head.He’s just like all these hookers.The only thing he’s afraid of is another one of the same kind.He’s covered everywhere you can hurt him.He don’t care about a left-hand in his face.

After about four rounds Jack has him bleeding bad and his face all cut up, but every time Walcott’s got in close he’s socked so hard he’s got two big red patches on both sides just below Jack’s ribs.Every time he gets in close, Jack ties him up, then gets one hand loose and uppercuts him, but when Walcott gets his hands loose he socks Jack in the body so they can hear it outside in the street.He’s a socker.

It goes along like that for three rounds more.They don’t talk any.They’re working all the time.We worked over Jack plenty too, in between the rounds.He don’t look good at all but he never does much work in the ring.He don’t move around much and that left-hand is just automatic.It’s just like it was connected with Walcott’s face and Jack just had to wish it in every time.Jack is always calm in close and he doesn’t waste any juice.He knows everything about working in close too and he’s getting away with a lot of stuff.While they were in our corner I watched him tie Walcott up, get his right hand loose, turn it and come up with an uppercut that got Walcott’s nose with the heel of the glove.Walcott was bleeding bad and leaned his nose on Jack’s shoulder so as to give Jack some of it too, and Jack sort of lifted his shoulder sharp and caught him against the nose, and then brought down the right hand and did the same thing again.

Walcott was sore as hell.By the time they’d gone five rounds he hated Jack’s guts.Jack wasn’t sore; that is, he wasn’t any sorer than he always was.He certainly did used to make the fellows he fought hate boxing.That was why he hated Kid Lewis so.He never got the Kid’s goat.Kid Lewis always had about three new dirty things Jack couldn’t do.Jack was as safe as a church all the time he was in there, as long as he was strong.He certainly was treating Walcott rough.The funny thing was it looked as though Jack was an open classic boxer.That was because he had all that stuff too.

After the seventh round Jack says, “My left’s getting heavy.”

From then he started to take a beating.It didn’t show at first.But instead of him running the fight it was Walcott was running it, instead of being safe all the time now he was in trouble.He couldn’t keep him out with the left hand now.It looked as though it was the same as ever, only now instead of Walcott’s punches just missing him they were just hitting him.He took an awful beating in the body.

“What’s the round?”Jack asked.

“The eleventh.”

“I can’t stay,” Jack says.“My legs are going bad.”

Walcott had been just hitting him for a long time.It was like a baseball catcher pulls the ball and takes some of the shock off.From now on Walcott commenced to land solid.He certainly was a socking-machine.Jack was just trying to block everything now.It didn’t show what an awful beating he was taking.In between the rounds I worked on his legs.The muscles would flutter under my hands all the time I was rubbing them.He was sick as hell.

“How’s it go?”he asked John, turning around, his face all swollen.

“It’s his fight.”

“I think I can last,” Jack says.“I don’t want this bohunk to stop me.”

It was going just the way he thought it would.He knew he couldn’t beat Walcott.He wasn’t strong any more.He was all right though.His money was all right and now he wanted to finish it off right to please himself.He didn’t want to be knocked out.

The gong rang and we pushed him out.He went out slow.Walcott came right out after him.Jack put the left in his face and Walcott took it, came in under it and started working on Jack’s body.Jack tried to tie him up and it was just like trying to hold on to a buzz-saw.Jack broke away from it and missed with the right.Walcott clipped him with a left-hook and Jack went down.He went down on his hands and knees and looked at us.The referee started counting.Jack was watching us and shaking his head.At eight John motioned to him.You couldn’t hear on account of the crowd.Jack got up.The referee had been holding Walcott back with one arm while he counted.

When Jack was on his feet Walcott started toward him.

“Watch yourself, Jimmy,” I heard Solly Freedman yell to him.

Walcott came up to Jack looking at him.Jack stuck the left hand at him.Walcott just shook his head.He backed Jack up against the ropes, measured him and then hooked the left very light to the side of Jack’s head and socked the right into the body as hard as he could sock, just as low as he could get it.He must have hit him five inches below the belt.I thought the eyes would come out of Jack’s head.They stuck way out.His mouth come open.

The referee grabbed Walcott.Jack stepped forward.If he went down there went fifty thousand bucks.He walked as though all his insides were going to fall out.

“It wasn’t low,” he said.“It was a accident.”

The crowd were yelling so you couldn’t hear anything.

“I’m all right,” Jack says.They were right in front of us.The referee looks at John and then he shakes his head.

“Come on, you polak son-of-a-bitch,” Jack says to Walcott.

John was hanging onto the ropes.He had the towel ready to chuck in.Jack was standing just a little way out from the ropes.He took a step forward.I saw the sweat come out on his face like somebody had squeezed it and a big drop went down his nose.

“Come on and fight,” Jack says to Walcott.

The referee looked at John and waved Walcott on.

“Go in there, you slob,” he says.

Walcott went in.He didn’t know what to do either.He never thought Jack could have stood it.Jack put the left in his face.There was such a hell of a lot of yelling going on.They were right in front of us.Walcott hit him twice.Jack’s face was the worst thing I ever saw,—the look on it!He was holding himself and all his body together and it all showed on his face.All the time he was thinking and holding his body in where it was busted.

Then he started to sock.His face looked awful all the time.He started to sock with his hands low down by his side, swinging at Walcott.Walcott covered up and Jack was swinging wild at Walcott’s head.Then he swung the left and it hit Walcott in the groin and the right hit Walcott right bang where he’d hit Jack.Way low below the belt.Walcott went down and grabbed himself there and rolled and twisted around.

The referee grabbed Jack and pushed him toward his corner.John jumps into the ring.There was all this yelling going on.The referee was talking with the judges and then the announcer got into the ring with the megaphone and says, “Walcott on a foul.”

The referee is talking to John and he says, “What could I do?Jack wouldn’t take the foul.Then when he’s groggy he fouls him.”

“He’d lost it anyway,” John says.

Jack’s sitting on the chair.I’ve got his gloves off and he’s holding himself in down there with both hands.When he’s got something supporting it his face doesn’t look so bad.

“Go over and say you’re sorry,” John says into his ear.“It’ll look good.”

Jack stands up and the sweat comes out all over his face.I put the bathrobe around him and he holds himself in with one hand under the bathrobe and goes across the ring.They’ve picked Walcott up and they’re working on him.There’re a lot of people in Walcott’s corner.Nobody speaks to Jack.He leans over Walcott.

“I’m sorry,” Jack says.“I didn’t mean to foul you.”

Walcott doesn’t say anything.He looks too damned sick.

“Well, you’re the champion now,” Jack says to him.“I hope you get a hell of a lot of fun out of it.”

“Leave the kid alone,” Solly Freedman says.

“Hello, Solly,” Jack says.“I’m sorry I fouled your boy.”

Freedman just looks at him.

Jack went to his corner walking that funny jerky way and we got him down through the ropes and through the reporters’ tables and out down the aisle.A lot of people want to slap Jack on the back.He goes out through all that mob in his bathrobe to the dressing-room.It’s a popular win for Walcott.That’s the way the money was bet in the Garden.

Once we got inside the dressing-room Jack lay down and shut his eyes.

“We want to get to the hotel and get a doctor,” John says.

“I’m all busted inside,” Jack says.

“I’m sorry as hell, Jack,” John says.

“It’s all right,” Jack says.

He lies there with his eyes shut.

“They certainly tried a nice double-cross,” John said.

“Your friends Morgan and Steinfelt,” Jack said.“You got nice friends.”

He lies there, his eyes are open now.His face has still got that awful drawn look.

“It’s funny how fast you can think when it means that much money,” Jack says.

“You’re some boy, Jack,” John says.

“No,” Jack says.“It was nothing.”

---

Outside, the snow was higher than the window.The sunlight came in through the window and shone on a map on the pine-board wall of the hut.The sun was high and the light came in over the top of the snow.A trench had been cut along the open side of the hut, and each clear day the sun, shining on the wall, reflected heat against the snow and widened the trench.It was late March.The major sat at a table against the wall.His adjutant sat at another table.

Around the major’s eyes were two white circles where his snow-glasses had protected his face from the sun on the snow.The rest of his face had been burned and then tanned and then burned through the tan.His nose was swollen and there were edges of loose skin where blisters had been.While he worked at the papers he put the fingers of his left hand into a saucer of oil and then spread the oil over his face, touching it very gently with the tips of his fingers.He was very careful to drain his fingers on the edge of the saucer so there was only a film of oil on them, and after he had stroked his forehead and his cheeks, he stroked his nose very delicately between his fingers.When he had finished he stood up, took the saucer of oil and went into the small room of the hut where he slept.“I’m going to take a little sleep,” he said to the adjutant.In that army an adjutant is not a commissioned officer.“You will finish up.”

“Yes, signor maggiore,” the adjutant answered.He leaned back in his chair and yawned.He took a paper-covered book out of the pocket of his coat and opened it; then laid it down on the table and lit his pipe.He leaned forward on the table to read and puffed at his pipe.Then he closed the book and put it back in his pocket.He had too much paper-work to get through.He could not enjoy reading until it was done.Outside, the sun went behind a mountain and there was no more light on the wall of the hut.A soldier came in and put some pine branches, chopped into irregular lengths, into the stove.“Be soft, Pinin,” the adjutant said to him.“The major is sleeping.”

Pinin was the major’s orderly.He was a dark-faced boy, and he fixed the stove, putting the pine wood in carefully, shut the door, and went into the back of the hut again.The adjutant went on with his papers.

“Tonani,” the major called.

“Signor maggiore?”

“Send Pinin in to me.”

“Pinin!”the adjutant called.Pinin came into the room.“The major wants you,” the adjutant said.

Pinin walked across the main room of the hut toward the major’s door.He knocked on the half-opened door.“Signor maggiore?”

“Come in,” the adjutant heard the major say, “and shut the door.”

Inside the room the major lay on his bunk.Pinin stood beside the bunk.The major lay with his head on the rucksack that he had stuffed with spare clothing to make a pillow.His long, burned, oiled face looked at Pinin.His hands lay on the blankets.

“You are nineteen?”he asked.

“Yes, signor maggiore.”

“You have ever been in love?”

“How do you mean, signor maggiore?”

“In love—with a girl?”

“I have been with girls.”

“I did not ask that.I asked if you had been in love—with a girl.”

“Yes, signor maggiore.”

“You are in love with this girl now?You don’t write her.I read all your letters.”

“I am in love with her,” Pinin said, “but I do not write her.”

“You are sure of this?”

“I am sure.”

“Tonani,” the major said in the same tone of voice, “can you hear me talking?”

There was no answer from the next room.

“He can not hear,” the major said.“And you are quite sure that you love a girl?”

“I am sure.”

“And,” the major looked at him quickly, “that you are not corrupt?”

“I don’t know what you mean, corrupt.”

“All right,” the major said.“You needn’t be superior.”

Pinin looked at the floor.The major looked at his brown face, down and up him, and at his hands.Then he went on, not smiling, “And you don’t really want—” the major paused.Pinin looked at the floor.“That your great desire isn’t really—” Pinin looked at the floor.The major leaned his head back on the rucksack and smiled.He was really relieved: life in the army was too complicated.“You’re a good boy,” he said.“You’re a good boy, Pinin.But don’t be superior and be careful some one else doesn’t come along and take you.”

Pinin stood still beside the bunk.

“Don’t be afraid,” the major said.His hands were folded on the blankets.“I won’t touch you.You can go back to your platoon if you like.But you had better stay on as my servant.You’ve less chance of being killed.”

“Do you want anything of me, signor maggiore?”

“No,” the major said.“Go on and get on with whatever you were doing.Leave the door open when you go out.”

Pinin went out, leaving the door open.The adjutant looked up at him as he walked awkwardly across the room and out the door.Pinin was flushed and moved differently than he had moved when he brought in the wood for the fire.The adjutant looked after him and smiled.Pinin came in with more wood for the stove.The major, lying on his bunk, looking at his cloth-covered helmet and his snow-glasses that hung from a nail on the wall, heard him walk across the floor.The little devil, he thought, I wonder if he lied to me.

---

After one Fourth of July, Nick, driving home late from town in the big wagon with Joe Garner and his family, passed nine drunken Indians along the road. He remembered there were nine because Joe Garner, driving along in the dusk, pulled up the horses, jumped down into the road and dragged an Indian out of the wheel rut. The Indian had been asleep, face down in the sand. Joe dragged him into the bushes and got back up on the wagon-box.

“That makes nine of them,” Joe said, “just between here and the edge of town.”

“Them Indians,” said Mrs. Garner.

Nick was on the back seat with the two Garner boys.He was looking out from the back seat to see the Indian where Joe had dragged him alongside of the road.

“Was it Billy Tabeshaw?”Carl asked.

“No.”

“His pants looked mighty like Billy.”

“All Indians wear the same kind of pants.”

“I didn’t see him at all,” Frank said.“Pa was down into the road and back up again before I seen a thing.I thought he was killing a snake.”

“Plenty of Indians’ll kill snakes to-night, I guess,” Joe Garner said.

“Them Indians,” said Mrs. Garner.

They drove along.The road turned off from the main highway and went up into the hills.It was hard pulling for the horses and the boys got down and walked.The road was sandy.Nick looked back from the top of the hill by the schoolhouse.He saw the lights of Petoskey and, off across Little Traverse Bay, the lights of Harbour Springs.They climbed back in the wagon again.

“They ought to put some gravel on that stretch,” Joe Garner said.The wagon went along the road through the woods.Joe and Mrs. Garner sat close together on the front seat.Nick sat between the two boys.The road came out into a clearing.

“Right here was where Pa ran over the skunk.”

“It was further on.”

“It don’t make no difference where it was,” Joe said without turning his head.“One place is just as good as another to run over a skunk.”

“I saw two skunks last night,” Nick said.

“Where?”

“Down by the lake.They were looking for dead fish along the beach.”

“They were coons probably,” Carl said.

“They were skunks.I guess I know skunks.”

“You ought to,” Carl said.“You got an Indian girl.”

“Stop talking that way, Carl,” said Mrs. Garner.

“Well, they smell about the same.”

Joe Garner laughed.

“You stop laughing, Joe,” Mrs. Garner said.“I won’t have Carl talk that way.”

“Have you got an Indian girl, Nickie?”Joe asked.

“No.”

“He has too, Pa,” Frank said.“Prudence Mitchell’s his girl.”

“She’s not.”

“He goes to see her every day.”

“I don’t.”Nick, sitting between the two boys in the dark, felt hollow and happy inside himself to be teased about Prudence Mitchell.“She ain’t my girl,” he said.

“Listen to him,” said Carl.“I see them together every day.”

“Carl can’t get a girl,” his mother said, “not even a squaw.”

Carl was quiet.

“Carl ain’t no good with girls,” Frank said.

“You shut up.”

“You’re all right, Carl,” Joe Garner said.“Girls never got a man anywhere.Look at your pa.”

“Yes, that’s what you would say,” Mrs. Garner moved close to Joe as the wagon jolted.“Well, you had plenty of girls in your time.”

“I’ll bet Pa wouldn’t ever have had a squaw for a girl.”

“Don’t you think it,” Joe said.“You better watch out to keep Prudie, Nick.”

His wife whispered to him and Joe laughed.

“What you laughing at?”asked Frank.

“Don’t you say it, Garner,” his wife warned.Joe laughed again.

“Nickie can have Prudence,” Joe Garner said.“I got a good girl.”

“That’s the way to talk,” Mrs. Garner said.

The horses were pulling heavily in the sand.Joe reached out in the dark with the whip.

“Come on, pull into it.You’ll have to pull harder than this to-morrow.”

They trotted down the long hill, the wagon jolting.At the farmhouse everybody got down.Mrs. Garner unlocked the door, went inside, and came out with a lamp in her hand.Carl and Nick unloaded the things from the back of the wagon.Frank sat on the front seat to drive to the barn and put up the horses.Nick went up the steps and opened the kitchen door.Mrs. Garner was building a fire in the stove.She turned from pouring kerosene on the wood.

“Good-by, Mrs. Garner,” Nick said.“Thanks for taking me.”

“Oh shucks, Nickie.”

“I had a wonderful time.”

“We like to have you.Won’t you stay and eat some supper?”

“I better go.I think Dad probably waited for me.”

“Well, get along then.Send Carl up to the house, will you?”

“All right.”

“Good-night, Nickie.”

“Good-night, Mrs. Garner.”

Nick went out the farmyard and down to the barn.Joe and Frank were milking.

“Good-night,” Nick said.“I had a swell time.”

“Good-night, Nick,” Joe Garner called.“Aren’t you going to stay and eat?”

“No, I can’t.Will you tell Carl his mother wants him?”

“All right.Good-night, Nickie.”

Nick walked barefoot along the path through the meadow below the barn.The path was smooth and the dew was cool on his bare feet.He climbed a fence at the end of the meadow, went down through a ravine, his feet wet in the swamp mud, and then climbed up through the dry beech woods until he saw the lights of the cottage.He climbed over the fence and walked around to the front porch.Through the window he saw his father sitting by the table, reading in the light from the big lamp.Nick opened the door and went in.

“Well, Nickie,” his father said, “was it a good day?”

“I had a swell time, Dad.It was a swell Fourth of July.”

“Are you hungry?”

“You bet.”

“What did you do with your shoes?”

“I left them in the wagon at Garner’s.”

“Come on out to the kitchen.”

Nick’s father went ahead with the lamp.He stopped and lifted the lid of the ice-box.Nick went on into the kitchen.His father brought in a piece of cold chicken on a plate and a pitcher of milk and put them on the table before Nick.He put down the lamp.

“There’s some pie too,” he said.“Will that hold you?”

“It’s grand.”

His father sat down in a chair beside the oilcloth-covered table.He made a big shadow on the kitchen wall.

“Who won the ball game?”

“Petoskey.Five to three.”

His father sat watching him eat and filled his glass from the milk-pitcher.Nick drank and wiped his mouth on his napkin.His father reached over to the shelf for the pie.He cut Nick a big piece.It was huckleberry pie.

“What did you do, Dad?”

“I went out fishing in the morning.”

“What did you get?”

“Only perch.”

His father sat watching Nick eat the pie.

“What did you do this afternoon?”Nick asked.

“I went for a walk up by the Indian camp.”

“Did you see anybody?”

“The Indians were all in town getting drunk.”

“Didn’t you see anybody at all?”

“I saw your friend, Prudie.”

“Where was she?”

“She was in the woods with Frank Washburn.I ran onto them.They were having quite a time.”

His father was not looking at him.

“What were they doing?”

“I didn’t stay to find out.”

“Tell me what they were doing.”

“I don’t know,” his father said.“I just heard them threshing around.”

“How did you know it was them?”

“I saw them.”

“I thought you said you didn’t see them.”

“Oh, yes, I saw them.”

“Who was it with her?”Nick asked.

“Frank Washburn.”

“Were they—were they——”

“Were they what?”

“Were they happy?”

“I guess so.”

His father got up from the table and went out the kitchen screen door.When he came back Nick was looking at his plate.He had been crying.

“Have some more?”His father picked up the knife to cut the pie.

“No,” said Nick.

“You better have another piece.”

“No, I don’t want any.”

His father cleared off the table.

“Where were they in the woods?”Nick asked.

“Up back of the camp.”Nick looked at his plate.His father said, “You better go to bed, Nick.”

“All right.”

Nick went into his room, undressed, and got into bed.He heard his father moving around in the living-room.Nick lay in the bed with his face in the pillow.

“My heart’s broken,” he thought.“If I feel this way my heart must be broken.”

After a while he heard his father blow out the lamp and go into his own room.He heard a wind come up in the trees outside and felt it come in cool through the screen.He lay for a long time with his face in the pillow, and after a while he forgot to think about Prudence and finally he went to sleep.When he awoke in the night he heard the wind in the hemlock trees outside the cottage and the waves of the lake coming in on the shore, and he went back to sleep.In the morning there was a big wind blowing and the waves were running high up on the beach and he was awake a long time before he remembered that his heart was broken.

---

The train passed very quickly a long, red stone house with a garden and four thick palm-trees with tables under them in the shade. On the other side was the sea. Then there was a cutting through red stone and clay, and the sea was only occasionally and far below against rocks.

“I bought him in Palermo,” the American lady said.“We only had an hour ashore and it was Sunday morning.The man wanted to be paid in dollars and I gave him a dollar and a half.He really sings very beautifully.”

It was very hot in the train and it was very hot in the lit salon compartment. There was no breeze came through the open window. The American lady pulled the window-blind down and there was no more sea, even occasionally. On the other side there was glass, then the corridor, then an open window, and outside the window were dusty trees and an oiled road and flat fields of grapes, with gray-stone hills behind them.

There was smoke from many tall chimneys—coming into Marseilles, and the train slowed down and followed one track through many others into the station. The train stayed twenty-five minutes in the station at Marseilles and the American lady bought a copy of The Daily Mail and a half-bottle of Evian water. She walked a little way along the station platform, but she stayed near the steps of the car because at Cannes, where it stopped for twelve minutes, the train had left with no signal of departure and she had only gotten on just in time. The American lady was a little deaf and she was afraid that perhaps signals of departure were given and that she did not hear them.

The train left the station in Marseilles and there was not only the switch-yards and the factory smoke but, looking back, the town of Marseilles and the harbor with stone hills behind it and the last of the sun on the water.As it was getting dark the train passed a farmhouse burning in a field.Motor-cars were stopped along the road and bedding and things from inside the farmhouse were spread in the field.Many people were watching the house burn.After it was dark the train was in Avignon.People got on and off.At the news-stand Frenchmen, returning to Paris, bought that day’s French papers.On the station platform were negro soldiers.They wore brown uniforms and were tall and their faces shone, close under the electric light.Their faces were very black and they were too tall to stare.The train left Avignon station with the negroes standing there.A short white sergeant was with them.

Inside the lit salon compartment the porter had pulled down the three beds from inside the wall and prepared them for sleeping. In the night the American lady lay without sleeping because the train was a rapide and went very fast and she was afraid of the speed in the night. The American lady’s bed was the one next to the window. The canary from Palermo, a cloth spread over his cage, was out of the draft in the corridor that went into the compartment wash-room. There was a blue light outside the compartment, and all night the train went very fast and the American lady lay awake and waited for a wreck.

In the morning the train was near Paris, and after the American lady had come out from the wash-room, looking very wholesome and middle-aged and American in spite of not having slept, and had taken the cloth off the birdcage and hung the cage in the sun, she went back to the restaurant-car for breakfast. When she came back to the lit salon compartment again, the beds had been pushed back into the wall and made into seats, the canary was shaking his feathers in the sunlight that came through the open window, and the train was much nearer Paris.

“He loves the sun,” the American lady said.“He’ll sing now in a little while.”

The canary shook his feathers and pecked into them.“I’ve always loved birds,” the American lady said.“I’m taking him home to my little girl.There—he’s singing now.”

The canary chirped and the feathers on his throat stood out, then he dropped his bill and pecked into his feathers again.The train crossed a river and passed through a very carefully tended forest.The train passed through many outside of Paris towns.There were tram-cars in the towns and big advertisements for the Belle Jardinière and Dubonnet and Pernod on the walls toward the train.All that the train passed through looked as though it were before breakfast.For several minutes I had not listened to the American lady, who was talking to my wife.

“Is your husband American too?”asked the lady.

“Yes,” said my wife.“We’re both Americans.”

“I thought you were English.”

“Oh, no.”

“Perhaps that was because I wore braces,” I said.I had started to say suspenders and changed it to braces in the mouth, to keep my English character.The American lady did not hear.She was really quite deaf; she read lips, and I had not looked toward her.I had looked out of the window.She went on talking to my wife.

“I’m so glad you’re Americans.American men make the best husbands,” the American lady was saying.“That was why we left the Continent, you know.My daughter fell in love with a man in Vevey.”She stopped.“They were simply madly in love.”She stopped again.“I took her away, of course.”

“Did she get over it?”asked my wife.

“I don’t think so,” said the American lady.“She wouldn’t eat anything and she wouldn’t sleep at all.I’ve tried so very hard, but she doesn’t seem to take an interest in anything.She doesn’t care about things.I couldn’t have her marrying a foreigner.”She paused.“Some one, a very good friend, told me once, ‘No foreigner can make an American girl a good husband.’”

“No,” said my wife, “I suppose not.”

The American lady admired my wife’s travelling-coat, and it turned out that the American lady had bought her own clothes for twenty years now from the same maison de couturier in the Rue Saint Honoré.They had her measurements, and a vendeuse who knew her and her tastes picked the dresses out for her and they were sent to America.They came to the post-office near where she lived up-town in New York, and the duty was never exorbitant because they opened the dresses there in the post-office to appraise them and they were always very simple-looking and with no gold lace nor ornaments that would make the dresses look expensive.Before the present vendeuse, named Thérèse, there had been another vendeuse, named Amélie.Altogether there had only been these two in the twenty years.It had always been the same couturier.Prices, however, had gone up.The exchange, though, equalized that.They had her daughter’s measurements now too.She was grown up and there was not much chance of their changing now.

The train was now coming into Paris.The fortifications were levelled but grass had not grown.There were many cars standing on tracks—brown wooden restaurant-cars and brown wooden sleeping-cars that would go to Italy at five o’clock that night, if that train still left at five; the cars were marked Paris-Rome, and cars, with seats on the roofs, that went back and forth to the suburbs with, at certain hours, people in all the seats and on the roofs, if that were the way it were still done, and passing were the white walls and many windows of houses.Nothing had eaten any breakfast.

“Americans make the best husbands,” the American lady said to my wife.I was getting down the bags.“American men are the only men in the world to marry.”

“How long ago did you leave Vevey?”asked my wife.

“Two years ago this fall.It’s her, you know, that I’m taking the canary to.”

“Was the man your daughter was in love with a Swiss?”

“Yes,” said the American lady.“He was from a very good family in Vevey.He was going to be an engineer.They met there in Vevey.They used to go on long walks together.”

“I know Vevey,” said my wife.“We were there on our honeymoon.”

“Were you really?That must have been lovely.I had no idea, of course, that she’d fall in love with him.”

“It was a very lovely place,” said my wife.

“Yes,” said the American lady.“Isn’t it lovely?Where did you stop there?”

“We stayed at the Trois Couronnes,” said my wife.

“It’s such a fine old hotel,” said the American lady.

“Yes,” said my wife.“We had a very fine room and in the fall the country was lovely.”

“Were you there in the fall?”

“Yes,” said my wife.

We were passing three cars that had been in a wreck.They were splintered open and the roofs sagged in.

“Look,” I said.“There’s been a wreck.”

The American lady looked and saw the last car. “I was afraid of just that all night,” she said. “I have terrific presentiments about things sometimes. I’ll never travel on a rapide again at night. There must be other comfortable trains that don’t go so fast.”

Then the train was in the dark of the Gare de Lyons, and then stopped and porters came up to the windows.I handed bags through the windows, and we were out on the dim longness of the platform, and the American lady put herself in charge of one of three men from Cook’s who said: “Just a moment, madame, and I’ll look for your name.”

The porter brought a truck and piled on the baggage, and my wife said good-by and I said good-by to the American lady, whose name had been found by the man from Cook’s on a typewritten page in a sheaf of typewritten pages which he replaced in his pocket.

We followed the porter with the truck down the long cement platform beside the train.At the end was a gate and a man took the tickets.

We were returning to Paris to set up separate residences.

---

It was hot coming down into the valley even in the early morning. The sun melted the snow from the skis we were carrying and dried the wood. It was spring in the valley but the sun was very hot. We came along the road into Galtur carrying our skis and rucksacks. As we passed the churchyard a burial was just over. I said, “Grüss Gott,” to the priest as he walked past us coming out of the churchyard. The priest bowed.

“It’s funny a priest never speaks to you,” John said.

“You’d think they’d like to say ‘Grüss Gott.’”

“They never answer,” John said.

We stopped in the road and watched the sexton shovelling in the new earth.A peasant with a black beard and high leather boots stood beside the grave.The sexton stopped shovelling and straightened his back.The peasant in the high boots took the spade from the sexton and went on filling in the grave—spreading the earth evenly as a man spreading manure in a garden.In the bright May morning the grave-filling looked unreal.I could not imagine any one being dead.

“Imagine being buried on a day like this,” I said to John.

“I wouldn’t like it.”

“Well,” I said, “we don’t have to do it.”

We went on up the road past the houses of the town to the inn.We had been skiing in the Silvretta for a month, and it was good to be down in the valley.In the Silvretta the skiing had been all right, but it was spring skiing, the snow was good only in the early morning and again in the evening.The rest of the time it was spoiled by the sun.We were both tired of the sun.You could not get away from the sun.The only shadows were made by rocks or by the hut that was built under the protection of a rock beside a glacier, and in the shade the sweat froze in your underclothing.You could not sit outside the hut without dark glasses.It was pleasant to be burned black but the sun had been very tiring.You could not rest in it.I was glad to be down away from snow.It was too late in the spring to be up in the Silvretta.I was a little tired of skiing.We had stayed too long.I could taste the snow water we had been drinking melted off the tin roof of the hut.The taste was a part of the way I felt about skiing.I was glad there were other things beside skiing, and I was glad to be down, away from the unnatural high mountain spring, into this May morning in the valley.

The innkeeper sat on the porch of the inn, his chair tipped back against the wall.Beside him sat the cook.

“Ski-heil!”said the innkeeper.

“Heil!”we said and leaned the skis against the wall and took off our packs.

“How was it up above?”asked the innkeeper.

“Schön.A little too much sun.”

“Yes.There’s too much sun this time of year.”

The cook sat on in his chair.The innkeeper went in with us and unlocked his office and brought out our mail.There was a bundle of letters and some papers.

“Let’s get some beer,” John said.

“Good.We’ll drink it inside.”

The proprietor brought two bottles and we drank them while we read the letters.

“We better have some more beer,” John said.A girl brought it this time.She smiled as she opened the bottles.

“Many letters,” she said.

“Yes.Many.”

“Prosit,” she said and went out, taking the empty bottles.

“I’d forgotten what beer tasted like.”

“I hadn’t,” John said.“Up in the hut I used to think about it a lot.”

“Well,” I said, “we’ve got it now.”

“You oughtn’t to ever do anything too long.”

“No.We were up there too long.”

“Too damn long,” John said.“It’s no good doing a thing too long.”

The sun came through the open window and shone through the beer bottles on the table.The bottles were half full.There was a little froth on the beer in the bottles, not much because it was very cold.It collared up when you poured it into the tall glasses.I looked out of the open window at the white road.The trees beside the road were dusty.Beyond was a green field and a stream.There were trees along the stream and a mill with a water wheel.Through the open side of the mill I saw a long log and a saw in it rising and falling.No one seemed to be tending it.There were four crows walking in the green field.One crow sat in a tree watching.Outside on the porch the cook got off his chair and passed into the hall that led back into the kitchen.Inside, the sunlight shone through the empty glasses on the table.John was leaning forward with his head on his arms.

Through the window I saw two men come up the front steps.They came into the drinking room.One was the bearded peasant in the high boots.The other was the sexton.They sat down at the table under the window.The girl came in and stood by their table.The peasant did not seem to see her.He sat with his hands on the table.He wore his old army clothes.There were patches on the elbows.

“What will it be?”asked the sexton.The peasant did not pay any attention.

“What will you drink?”

“Schnapps,” the peasant said.

“And a quarter litre of red wine,” the sexton told the girl.

The girl brought the drinks and the peasant drank the schnapps.He looked out of the window.The sexton watched him.John had his head forward on the table.He was asleep.

The innkeeper came in and went over to the table.He spoke in dialect and the sexton answered him.The peasant looked out of the window.The innkeeper went out of the room.The peasant stood up.He took a folded ten-thousand kronen note out of a leather pocket-book and unfolded it.The girl came up.

“Alles?”she asked.

“Alles,” he said.

“Let me buy the wine,” the sexton said.

“Alles,” the peasant repeated to the girl.She put her hand in the pocket of her apron, brought it out full of coins and counted out the change.The peasant went out the door.As soon as he was gone the innkeeper came into the room again and spoke to the sexton.He sat down at the table.They talked in dialect.The sexton was amused.The innkeeper was disgusted.The sexton stood up from the table.He was a little man with a mustache.He leaned out of the window and looked up the road.

“There he goes in,” he said.

“In the Löwen?”

“Ja.”

They talked again and then the innkeeper came over to our table.The innkeeper was a tall man and old.He looked at John asleep.

“He’s pretty tired.”

“Yes, we were up early.”

“Will you want to eat soon?”

“Any time,” I said.“What is there to eat?”

“Anything you want.The girl will bring the eating-card.”

The girl brought the menu.John woke up.The menu was written in ink on a card and the card slipped into a wooden paddle.

“There’s the speise-karte,” I said to John.He looked at it.He was still sleepy.

“Won’t you have a drink with us?”I asked the innkeeper.He sat down.“Those peasants are beasts,” said the innkeeper.

“We saw that one at a funeral coming into town.”

“That was his wife.”

“Oh.”

“He’s a beast.All these peasants are beasts.”

“How do you mean?”

“You wouldn’t believe it.You wouldn’t believe what just happened about that one.”

“Tell me.”

“You wouldn’t believe it.”The innkeeper spoke to the sexton.“Franz, come over here.”The sexton came, bringing his little bottle of wine and his glass.

“The gentlemen are just come down from the Wiesbadenerhütte,” the innkeeper said.We shook hands.

“What will you drink?”I asked.

“Nothing,” Franz shook his finger.

“Another quarter litre?”

“All right.”

“Do you understand dialect?”the innkeeper asked.

“No.”

“What’s it all about?”John asked.

“He’s going to tell us about the peasant we saw filling the grave, coming into town.”

“I can’t understand it, anyway,” John said.“It goes too fast for me.”

“That peasant,” the innkeeper said, “to-day he brought his wife in to be buried.She died last November.”

“December,” said the sexton.

“That makes nothing.She died last December then, and he notified the commune.”

“December eighteenth,” said the sexton.

“Anyway, he couldn’t bring her over to be buried until the snow was gone.”

“He lives on the other side of the Paznaun,” said the sexton.“But he belongs to this parish.”

“He couldn’t bring her out at all?”I asked.

“No.He can only come, from where he lives, on skis until the snow melts.So to-day he brought her in to be buried and the priest, when he looked at her face, didn’t want to bury her.You go on and tell it,” he said to the sexton.“Speak German, not dialect.”

“It was very funny with the priest,” said the sexton.“In the report to the commune she died of heart trouble.We knew she had heart trouble here.She used to faint in church sometimes.She did not come for a long time.She wasn’t strong to climb.When the priest uncovered her face he asked Olz, ‘Did your wife suffer much?’‘No,’ said Olz.‘When I came in the house she was dead across the bed.’

“The priest looked at her again.He didn’t like it.

“ ‘How did her face get that way?’

“ ‘I don’t know,’ Olz said.

“ ‘You’d better find out,’ the priest said, and put the blanket back.Olz didn’t say anything.The priest looked at him.Olz looked back at the priest.‘You want to know?’

“ ‘I must know,’ the priest said.”

“This is where it’s good,” the innkeeper said.“Listen to this.Go on Franz.”

“ ‘Well,’ said Olz, ‘when she died I made the report to the commune and I put her in the shed across the top of the big wood.When I started to use the big wood she was stiff and I put her up against the wall.Her mouth was open and when I came into the shed at night to cut up the big wood, I hung the lantern from it.’

“ ‘Why did you do that?’asked the priest.

“ ‘I don’t know,’ said Olz.

“ ‘Did you do that many times?’

“ ‘Every time I went to work in the shed at night.’

“ ‘It was very wrong,’ said the priest.‘Did you love your wife?’

“ ‘Ja, I loved her,’ Olz said.‘I loved her fine.’”

“Did you understand it all?”asked the innkeeper.“You understand it all about his wife?”

“I heard it.”

“How about eating?”John asked.

“You order,” I said.“Do you think it’s true?”I asked the innkeeper.

“Sure it’s true,” he said.“These peasants are beasts.”

“Where did he go now?”

“He’s gone to drink at my colleague’s, the Löwen.”

“He didn’t want to drink with me,” said the sexton.

“He didn’t want to drink with me, after he knew about his wife,” said the innkeeper.

“Say,” said John.“How about eating?”

“All right,” I said.

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